Cannabis News

The HEMP Embassy Headlines are a selection of recent articles from news services and media sources primarily concerning Cannabis issues, the consequences of prohibition and the challenges for law reform. Here are the selected headlines for this week.

Embassy HEADLINES Issue 317

August 16, 2018

AUSTRALIA & NZ

Join Us to Voice your Opinion [Medical Cannabis Users Association]

I come from Nimbin where we have nine permanent police and our main street is live on cameras to their station. Some of them love doing random roadside drug testing… its like letting a hungry lion loose in a cage full of deer. We are the only country on earth taking away driving licences for any trace of THC in your saliva and it can stay in your body for months in a regular toker like myself. Is this why we are only introducing medical cannabis to people who are virtually on their death beds and not driving? What do you think?

As a result of Australia’s cannabis prohibition, 72,000 consenting adults were criminalised for their recreational use of marijuana – a plant that has been an integral part of human culture for at least twenty thousand years and probably much longer.

The Australian journey towards legalisation was never a proactive political agenda informed by the emerging medical science, rather it was a response to public pressure and overwhelming public support for medical cannabis. While the UK has Alfie and Billy, our own champions included Lucy Haslam, a woman from country Australia married to a former drug squad detective, whose son Dan could only find relief from his Stage 4 bowel cancer by smoking cannabis that his parents illegally sourced for him.

In an Australian first, La Trobe University just announced it will host the country’s first Research Hub for Medicinal Agriculture, an institute that will research how best to grow medicinal marijuana.

A marijuana mogul who spruiks himself as the reputable face of Australia’s medical cannabis ­industry — and who was the star talent in a recent ABC Four Corners investigation — has been linked to a series of violent and ­homophobic social media posts ­directed towards a journalist.

NORTH AMERICA

Nevada’s first full year of taxable marijuana sales are expected to exceed more than half a billion dollars, according to Nevada state marijuana regulators. That figure is 25 percent higher than official state revenue projections.

Alaska’s marijuana tax revenue for fiscal year 2018 exceeded predictions from the Alaska Department of Revenue by nearly $2 million. Official figures for FY18 were released by the DOR last week, revealing that the state collected more than $11 million from marijuana cultivators.

A lot of hard work in the signature gathering phase has paid off for North Dakota activists who submitted 14,637 valid signatures for their petition to put a legalization measure on the ballot – around 1,200 more than they needed. This was confirmed on Monday by Secretary of State Al Jaeger – meaning North Dakota voters will have the chance to end prohibition in their state with the election on November 6th.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has already declined nearly 300 cases related to buying small amounts of marijuana for personal consumption since January. Now a new internal memo obtained last week by Philadelphia’s local NBC News Affiliate NBC10 reveals that the DA has decided to continue that policy and has defined small quantities of marijuana as anything under 30 grams. Cases involving the intent to distribute will still be prosecuted.

One of the aspects of the legal battles is the fight over smokable medical cannabis being banned by the Florida legislature in 2017. Orlando lawyer – and major force behind medical marijuana’s legalization in the state in 2016 – John Morgan, went to court to overturn the ban. He won an initial victory in May – a victory the state of Florida immediately appealed.

But the study also reveals a criminal justice system not prepared to deal with drugged driving. The authors of the report noted that inconsistent testing is one of the many challenges in collecting data on drug-impaired driving.

The state water agency created a pilot cannabis team four years ago to investigate marijuana growers in Northern California who divert or pollute waterways in their effort to profit via cannabis. Last year, the enforcement effort expanded into Southern California, with increased staffing in Santa Ana that’s part of a broader push to minimize the damage that cannabis cultivation can wreak on water quality and water supply.

Taking a tolerance break while job searching, just in case they drug test? This may no longer be necessary with the introduction of a bill that seeks to end the denial and termination of employees who test positive for cannabis.

Disadvantaged workers in San Francisco could get training for jobs in the cannabis industry under a proposed government program that would require businesses to hire the graduates. The program, dubbed CityGrow, is modeled after CityBuild, an existing government program overseen by the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, that provides training for disadvantaged residents to land jobs in the construction industry.

On January 1, California opened the largest legal adult-use cannabis market in the world. The marketplace, however, has experienced a resoundingly unimpressive launch, with sales numbers hovering at about 50 percent of pre-legalization predictions. At the heart of the market’s tumultuous start, there lies a mess of issues — including over taxation, burdensome regulations, local licensing delays, and even hiccups with altruistically intended equity programs — but the bottom line is that consumers, entrepreneurs, and cannabis industry workers are all experiencing negative side effects in the new marketplace, including product shortages, employee layoffs, and more.

According to the records released by D.C. police, arrests for cannabis have risen a surprising 37 percent from 2016 to 2017. Even more surprising is the fact that arrest rates tripled from 2015 to 2016, even though the cannabis plant was technically legal at the time.

On July 9, Montreal’s central library branch will host one of the most harmlessly respectable events we can imagine: a panel of experts, including a human rights lawyer and a senior cannabis policy official at Health Canada, discussing marijuana legalization. You wouldn’t learn that, though, from a promoted Facebook post that passed the platform’s censors after a five-hour struggle Tuesday night. Though for anybody who’s followed national politics for the last year or so, it’s easy enough to read between the lines. The story raises questions about how U.S. law spills across the border to affect how Canadians are able to interact with each other on Facebook.

UK & EUROPE

With the on-going debate on the legal status of cannabis, Charlie Lloyd, Geoff Page and Sharon Grace from York University discuss the results of their research in North Yorkshire looking at the day-to-day policing of cannabis possession and analysis of the data on drug possession offences. The research raises important questions about how police forces in England and Wales should deal with this common but to some, trivial, offence.

CannPal Animal Therapeutics is looking to develop and broaden its research pipeline after announcing that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Melbourne. The deal could pave the way for the animal health company to manufacture cannabidiol-based drugs that combat epilepsy in dogs, and thereby create an entirely new range of medicines for pets.

While cannabis has been used medicinally for hundreds of years, yet only recently have studies delved into determining whether it is safe and effective. Now, a group of researchers with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel want medicinal cannabis to become as conventional as ibuprofen or acetaminophen. They are urging the medical community to recognize the treatment as another powerful tool of modern medicine.

The American Osteopathic Association (AOA) believes that cannabis should be reclassified under United States federal law. In a new resolution approved by the AOA House of Delegates, the representative member organization for more than 137,000 osteopathic physicians and medical students argues that rescheduling marijuana as a Schedule II substance is necessary for facilitating more research.

The scion of a family that made a fortune in chewing gum is moving into pot. William Wrigley Jr. II, who helped orchestrate the sale of his family’s business to Mars Inc. in 2008, led a $65 million investment round for Surterra Wellness, a medical cannabis startup in Georgia with licenses to operate in Florida and Texas. The funding brings the total raised so far to $100 million, according to Surterra.

Corona beer owner Constellation Brands is set to pour some $4bn (£3.15bn) into Canada’s top cannabis producer, Canopy Growth, in a deal marking the largest investment in the industry to date. Last year, Constellation injected $200m into Canopy in a deal to produce a non-alcoholic cannabis-based beverage. The alcohol firm wants to capitalise on the growing legalisation of the drug.

Up until recently, cannabis was considered a schedule one drug, meaning it was classified by the government as not acceptable for medical use, unless the Home Office issued a license for it. These new developments should make sensible people wonder if other schedule one drugs might also have therapeutic properties.

FUNDRAISERS/CAMPAIGNS

21 June Breaking news! Tony has been released on bail. Tony of Mullaway’s Medical Cannabis has once again been arrested for growing his cannabis medicine! Tony makes cannabis tincture for children with epilepsy and countless others with cancer, chronic pain, ms and the list goes on. Tony Bower has dedicated his life to helping others and now needs your help. All Donations would be greatly appreciated.

Let’s get real about cannabis.The “war on drugs” has been lost. These days, millions of Australians choose to use cannabis and countries all around the world are changing their laws after realising prohibition does more harm than good. It’s high time we joined them and legalised it. That’s why I’m proud to announce today that the Greens are launching our national plan to legalise cannabis for adult use.

MEDICAN WEEKENDS at the BUSH THEATRE, Nimbin [Hemp Embassy]

The next Medican Workshops will be on the weekend of October 20/21 and then January 19/20, 2019. Entry by donation, beside the river at Nimbin’s Bush Theatre. Starting at 11 am and aiming to finish by 420! Learn how to make and use Cannabis as medicine!

Speaker presentations from the Nimbin Medican Workshop, last weekend 23-24 June 2018, are now online. Big thanks to Disco Sista for documenting the many medican workshops that the Embassy has hosted in Nimbin over the past 3 years. If you’ve missed these amazing gatherings, then you can still watch the speakers online: Click on this link to head to Disco Sista’s Nimbin Medican YouTube Channel.

IF YOU WANT IT: When Phil Bromley moved from Sydney to one of Australia’s most famous and surprisingly largest tourism destinations, Nimbin he felt like he’d found home. Six years on, after observing and experiencing the relentless police harassment and mainstream media victimization of his new hometown, Phil felt it was time to let the town tell their story in their own words. ‘Exposing The War On Drugs’ is an eight part radio documentary series that looks at how the war on drugs has affected Australia and the rest of the world. Broadcast around Australia on the Community Radio Network, from the 18th April and podcast at https://player.whooshkaa.com/shows/exposing-the-war-on-drugs . With the spotlight on Nimbin, Australia’s most famous “alternative” town, the team from NIM FM, (Nimbin’s local community radio station), explore drug prohibition, medicinal cannabis, addiction and Nimbin itself; and offer some solutions to the costly drug war that has raged since the early 1930s.

Entheogenesis Australis (EGA) would like to thank the psychedelic community for it’s ongoing support and attendance at our recent Psychedelic Symposium. Since the event we’ve had a lot of inquiries about obtaining copies of the new EGA Journal 4 and other special merchandise. To browse, please feel free to head to the EGA Shop online or click on the items below. This is also your chance to pick up classic and new T-shirt designs. Please keep in mind much of the stock is very limited so don’t delay!